ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has held that discrimination between different sets of civil servants posted on deputation by denying them an allowance with retrospective effect is in defiance of Article 25 of the Constitution.

“It could not be acceptable even otherwise on the touchstone of the rule of consistency that one set of civil servants posted on deputation is allowed deputation allowance retrospectively and others are deprived of that, which otherwise would be in defiance of Article 25 of the Constitution,” according to a judgement written by Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi.

Justice Naqvi was a member of a three-judge SC bench, headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, which had taken up an appeal by the secretary, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Islamabad, against a decision by the Federal Service Tribunal (FST) that upheld a plea by an officer of the postal group for payment of deputation allowance with retrospective effect.

SC dismisses FBR’s appeal against service tribunal’s verdict

The controversy emerged after the revenue department moved the appeal before the Supreme Court, challenging the Oct 11, 2018, order of the FST which accepted a service appeal filed by Zeenat Bangash (respondent) and held that he was entitled to deputation allowance with retrospective effect.

Bangash, an officer of the postal group, worked in the FBR on deputation from 1994 to 2001, but was not paid deputation allowance. After repatriation to his parent department, he approached the FBR on Nov 27, 2012, for payment of deputation allowance on the basis of the FST order, upheld by the apex court.

But Bangash’s request was turned down by the FBR on May 12, 2015, on the plea that a July 1, 2007, office memorandum (OM) had made it clear that the facility was admissible in fresh cases only and not applicable to old cases.

The officer then moved an appeal before the appellate authority — secretary to the Finance Division. The department referred the matter to the Establishment Division in Feb 2016, but the appeal was never decided.

Bangash then approached the FST, which accepted his plea for payment of deputation allowance. But the FBR challenged the decision before the apex court.

In its judgement, the Supreme Court recalled that an earlier OM of April 2, 1999, had specified that deputation allowance was payable only to officers of the Foreign Service and not to deputationists from ministries and divisions. But an earlier FST order, which was upheld by the apex court, had made it clear that all officers of the ministries and divisions who had been transferred and posted on deputation were entitled to deputation allowance.

Thus the only question needing clarification is whether the OM had retrospective effect or was it meant only for fresh cases, the judgement said. It went on to say there was no denying the fact that on the basis of the Finance Division’s OM of 2007, deputation allowance was paid to all civil servants, whether old or fresh ones, and no distinction was made between them on the basis of whether they had been inducted into OMG or otherwise. “We are of the candid view that the FST has passed a well-reasoned judgement to which no exception can be taken,” the judgment said, adding that the appeal stood dismissed as it had no merit.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2021